This was just a great bout between the 2. Martel was tremendous working Bock's arm. He was just going to town on it. Bockwinkle did some nice work on Martel's ribs and mid-section. Both mens selling was great. This is the kind of work I like. Just good limb work, and selling from both men. It wasn't a clean finish so it could build to rematches. Nomination.

Martel scores with a nice crossbody early, and that sort of becomes a theme of the match as Martel hits big offense in runs to combat Bock who is clearly trying to slow things down. There is an odd corner whip early, but other than these guys work really smooth exchanges, with Martel on the arm and Bock sort of targetting the ribs. Spot with Martel going to the floor and getting pissed off only to fire right back up and run off a nice string of offense on Bock was really well executed as it is a spot the AWA often ran, but rarely without a drawn out "heel keeps face at bay" on the floor spot. Bock ends up taking over with an eye rake and locks on a sleeper, but Martel runs toward the corner and drops him face first into the top turnbuckle which looked really good. Martel had dropped elbows on Bock's back earlier and Bock's back goes out on a slam attempt so Martel immediately goes to work on it and locks on an ab stretch. Heenan gets on the apron and gets accidentally decked by Bock which leads to a big near fall for Martel. Martel keeps the attack moving forward but eats the knees on his slingshot splash attempt. Bock goes back to the sleeper and they do a double pin finish but with Martel getting his shoulder up at the last second. Kind of a cool false title switch tease from the perspective that the heel got caught on the "cheap" counter.

8/16/84